What does the Glasgow climate agreement include and what does it mean for Canada?

OTTAWA: It is a global failure or better than nothing compromise to tackle the gravest threat to humanity in the 21st century.

Those are the two main interpretations of the treatment produced this weekend at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Nearly 200 countries, including Canada, signed the latest international agreement on Saturday to address the man-made global warming crisis.

The main goal of this year’s conference was to ensure that the world can still limit this century’s average global temperature increases to a less damaging 1.5 C, in part by declaring an accelerated global phase-out of coal power.

That did not happen at all.

“We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement this weekend.

So what does the final deal say? Where does it fall short? And what does it mean for one of the top greenhouse gas polluters per capita, Canada?

What does it say?

Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister who oversaw the talks, called the deal a “fragile victory” that will ultimately be judged on whether countries honor their commitments.

These include a call to “phase out” the use of coal energy “without ceasing” – a previous preliminary agreement called for the “phase-out” of coal energy – and to accelerate the elimination of “inefficient subsidies to coal. fossil fuels”.

The agreement also calls on countries to “review and strengthen” their emissions targets for 2030 by the end of next year, so that they are in line with the temperature target of the Paris Agreement.

That agreement commits the world to restrict global warming this century to well below 2 ° C and as close to 1.5 ° C as possible. Scientists from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have concluded that the damaging impacts of climate change are significantly less if warming is limited to 1.5 C.

Kathryn Harrison, a professor who specializes in climate policy at the University of British Columbia, said the willingness to adopt stronger targets by 2030 is “the key thing that came out of Glasgow,” because it brings forward the next scheduled deadline to toughen the targets for emissions from 2025. until 2022.

“They are holding their collective feet against the fire,” he said. “That’s really important, because the global carbon budget for 1.5C is really running out of time.”

The agreement also called on countries to double the amount of money rich countries provide poorer nations to adapt to the realities of climate change.

Where does it fall short?

The biggest shortcoming is also the most obvious: that the commitments made so far are not considered sufficient to ensure that global warming remains at an increase of 1.5 C. report published last week by the consortium of analysts behind the Climate Action Tracker website concluded that current promises still mean that global emissions will be roughly double by 2030 what is needed to limit warming to 1.5 C.

“It’s clearly inappropriate, but every tenth of a degree we avoid warming matters, so there was progress,” said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist at Greenpeace Canada.

Countries also failed to secure $ 100 billion in annual climate finance that was promised to the poorest countries by 2020. That threshold is not expected to be reached until 2023.

For Harrison, another problem with the final deal is that it only commits countries to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies, a vague term that climate activists often criticize as a potential loophole for governments to continue to support this. high emission industry.

“How can it be efficient to put taxpayers’ money into an industry that is leading us toward catastrophe?” she said.

What does it mean for Canada?

Harrison and Stewart predict that the Glasgow agreement will increase pressure on Canada to do more to reduce emissions and help other countries combat climate change.

Canada has already pledged to phase out coal power by 2030, and also to eliminate “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies by 2023. It also signed a pledge in Glasgow to stop using government money to support coal, oil and gas projects. in other countries by 2023.

But Harrison predicted Ottawa will hear calls to remove billions of dollars in government support for Canada’s oil and gas sector from Crown corporations, something Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has acknowledged must happen. .

This comes as the federal government first promises to limit emissions in the oil and gas sector to ensure that they stop rising and then decline to zero, when the remaining emissions are captured by technology or nature, by 2050, Stewart pointed out.

“We are going to have a major battle over the cap on oil and gas emissions and what form it takes,” he said.

The provision in the Glasgow agreement to declare stronger targets by the end of next year will also put pressure on Canada, Harrison said. Guilbeault said last week that Canada has already raised its 2030 target to at least 40 percent below 2005 levels, but the new agreement says countries must increase their ambition.

The IPCC has said that global emissions must fall by 45 percent by 2030 to preserve the world’s chances of limiting warming to 1.5 C.